• Composites Research
• /
• v.34 no.4
• /
• pp.233-240
• /
• 2021

VaRI(Vacuum assisted Resin Infusion) process, which is cost effective and suitable for manufacturing large-sized composites, is an OoA(Out-of Autoclave) process. For rapid resin infusion in the VaRI process, a DM(distribution media) is placed on top of the fabric. The resin is rapidly supplied in plane direction of the fiber along the DM, and then the supplied resin is impregnated in the out-of-plane direction of fiber. It is difficult to predict the flow of resin because the flow of in-plane direction and the out-of-plane direction occur together, and a 3D numerical analysis program is used to simulate the resin infusion process. However, in order to analyze in 3D, many elements are required in the out-of-plane direction of fabric. And the product size is larger, the longer the analysis time needs. Therefore, in this study, a method was suggested to reduce the time required for flow analysis by simplifying the 3D flow analysis to 2D flow analysis. The usefulness was verified by comparing the 3D flow analysis with the simplified 2D flow analysis at the same conditions. The filling time error was about 7% and the reduction of flow analysis time was about 95%. In addition, by utilizing the constant difference in the flow front between the top, middle, and bottom of the fabric of the 3D analysis, the flow front of the top, middle, and bottom of the fabric can be also predicted in the 2D flow analysis.